What if?

The other day while I was listening to Coldplay's song entitle "What if?" I was struck by one of their opening lines. "What if there was no light, nothing wrong, nothing right…what if there was not time and no reason…" I know, it's heavy stuff even for Coldplay. So I got to thinking particularly about the part about there being nothing wrong and nothing right. It reminded me of the book "1984" by George Orwell. He depicts a totalitarian government that wages wars against itself and watches everyone all the time, and eradicates anyone who dares to be different. You might have heard of the phrase, "big brother is watching you." In this society, the cameras constantly monitored every aspect of one's life to keep one from committing thought crime. Thought crime was the act of thinking anything negative or different from what the government wanted everyone to think. In the book the main character, tries to explain how society has changed because of big brother and thought crime. He says that there is no right or wrong in this society because there are no laws. Everything was right, but thought crime would get you killed. There was no choice. You either obeyed big brother or you died. So I think that Coldplay were talking about wrong and right in terms of morals. If these morals didn't exists then government could create its own idea of right and wrong and become totalitarian. Which In turn leads to lack of choice. So if there was nothing wrong and nothing right, there would be no choice at all in anything. No individuals, only a society like the matrix could exist whose whole existence it completely fabricated.

Delphic Maxims and Aristotle

Delphic Maxims

Know yourself.

Nothing in excess.

Aid friends.

Control anger.

Shun unjust acts.

Ackowledge sacred things.

Hold on to learning.

Praise virtue.

Avoid enemies.

Cultivate kinsmen.

Pity supplicants.

Accomplish your limit.

When you err, repent.

Consider the time.

Worship the divine.

 
 

Those are just a few of the Delphic Maxims. At the beginning of the semester I came across these Delphic maxims and thought about writing a blog concerning them. However, at the time it didn't seem interesting enough to me or I didn't see anything too exciting about them back then. So I was looking over the complete list of Delphic maxims (which can e found all over Google) and I realized that a lot of them actually seem like they could easily be integrated into my life if they weren't already. I think that they cover a lot of moral ground. It's sort of like Aristotle's moral virtues hidden in aphorisms. But still the suggestions don't tell you what you're aiming for like Aristotle does in the nichomechian ethics. There are only suggestions, some that seem perfectly normal and good and other that seem pointless and misguided. So it all depends on the "good" that you're trying to achieve whether or not the Delphic maxims could acts as the nichomechian ethics. Before we read the N.M I thought that the Delphic maxims were good tenets to live by, but now I think that they fall terribly short and could lead to any kind of life unlike the virtues taught in the N.M which Aristotle goes to incredible heights to show that they aim towards the greatest heights.

 
 

 
 

Zeno's Paradoxes

As I was reading Zeno's Stadium and Achilles paradoxes, I discovered something that I found very interesting. The paradoxes themselves make sense to me, but that's not necessarily a good thing. I think of the implications of such paradoxes and it makes me very pessimistic. What are the implications of the Stadium paradox for example? If there are infinite half-ways, and it makes theoretical sense, then why is motion for point A to point B practically possible? It signifies to me that there is a disconnect somewhere along the way and I'm afraid that the incongruence arises from us. How can we grasp that it's theoretically impossible to move across the room, yet acknowledge that we still perceive it to be possible? And what if we could somehow free ourselves from this practical world. What if the theoretical matched the practical? Imagine one day waking up and finding that it's impossible both theoretically and practically for you to walk across your room? Certainly, life would be a whole lot more interesting. Oh… and the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise that makes all physics classes I've ever taken seem so useless! No matter how much I try to reconcile the two, they seem like opposites. I can't decide what realer; the theoretical world or the practical world that I experience every moment of my life

Letter to Purpose

Difficult

You're one stubborn…You're just impossible

What do I have to do?

Live here, just live, looking for you only to find I'll never find you

What do you have to do with all of this?

There's no life without purpose

But what if there's no purpose?

Nothing worth noting

And how will we know when we find you.

To do what you're meant to do? Who says?

I'd like to think that purpose is another way of saying you're free to do whatever you want.

That we have the choice and we always have

That we're meant to do what we do, but that what we do is completely up to us.

That's not the case, not the case for me anyhow.

There's something that my soul yearns for, Something that seems right and purposeful.

Something unrecognizable and that's not of me

An outside influence upon my life, within me but foreign to me.

One day I'll know what it is, that which my soul yearns for

Which is attainable, but impossible to keep

That which once attained, the soul needs it no more

That which the mind doesn't care for, but it can't ignore

That which my heart can't live without

If all else disappeared, it would still remain completely self sufficient and unbounded.

Purpose… I can't make it appear, disappear or reappear.

Always in motion, in every thought in inside me mind.

 
 

 
 

 
 

Facebook Philosophy

This blog shouldn't be a monologue...so I'm trying my hand prose, and dialogue types of discussions. I'm also trying to explore a variety of topics. Here's a dialogue I set up on facebook yesterday (that's how Socrates would've done it) by stating a common argument and waiting for the responses to roll in. It's fair to say that only those interested in philosophy would even try to engage in this discussion, so I know that all those responses stated here are part of a genuine search for truth.

Steve (me):
God is the perfect being. As He is most perfect, He must have all perfections. If God lacked existence He would not be perfect, as He is perfect he must exist.

Dami: If God is perfect, shouldn't He be perfectly inexistent also?

Steve:
I think, it is not meant that God should be perfectly all things at once for a perfect thing cannot have contradictions. God cannot be partly one thing and partly another because to have two parts would cause contradictions (that they are not the same is implied in their being separated). God must be one and unchanging.

Dami: Therefore the existence of contradictions such as good and evil, light and darkness, matter and antimatter, etc.. disproves God's perfection and hence His existence?

Steve:
The existence of these things is not tied to God's perfection because God is the only being that exists for it's own existence. It is the prime mover, the only being that can move without being moved. These are necessary conditions for anything to be referred to as God. You could say that if God is the first being, then light, dark, good, and evil ... See More among other contradictions all originated from God. But these things are contradictions as far as they relate to each other and not to God. Since God is the first being, all things must "contain" God, but not the other way around.

Dami:
Dude..I see that you've been studying your Aquinas...I just argued to prove a point. You see, God is defined as a supernatural being that transcends human understanding. Once science or religion or philosophy can prove God's existence, God ceases to exist!

Steve:
This is true so I think it's safe to say that science and philosophy will never prove God's existence.

Dami:
Do not ignore RELIGION...Religion is a human creation to satisfy the yearn for a relationship with God. As a human creation, it CANNOT prove His existence.

Steve: Lol U caught me! I think it would be hard to disprove that humans do "yearn" for a relationship with divinity (whatever your conception of divinity is). Where this yearning comes from is a different issue but it's there. Hence does the yearning exist because God exists, or does God exist because humans yearn for a God?

Dan: wow

Amara:
I think the common philosopher would assert the latter, but I'd like to say the yearning exists because God exists...God showed himself to man before man could even formulate the existence of a god. Yeah?

Me: Dan wow is probably an understatement.

Amara, there are no common philosophers. lol

I think you would have a pretty hard time making that argument. Give it a spin!